Inspired Employees Make InspiringApps—Dan

Drawing Inspiration We’ve been talking about how Inspired Employees Make InspiringApps. We’ve heard from Nadia about giving back and from Dan about finding Zen. For the third installment in our series, we’re sharing some words of wisdom from InspiringApps’ Art Director, Aaron Lea. Aaron Lea: Illustrator & Art Director Aaron Lea is an art director, UX/UI designer, and illustrator. Beyond Inspiring Apps’ clients, he has produced work for Lucasfilm, the Grammy Award-winning band Ghost, Bad Robot, Paramount Pictures, Rob Zombie, Fright Rags, and Liquid Death Mountain Water. Aaron finds his inspiration steeped in pop culture, a tradition of art in his family, and a creative digital design process that enables him to put novel creations back into the world and inspire others as a result: “My name is Aaron Lea, and I’m a designer and illustrator. I’ve been doing this as long as I remember. Art has been in my family for generations. I kept going with that, continuing on that tradition that my family set forward. I draw a lot of my inspiration from pop culture, from movies, from music—I get my inspiration from everywhere. I try to take from and try to mix them together to create something very unique. I traditionally work digitally, mostly because I am such a messy artist. I’ll work in several layers until I find and just keep refining and keep refining.  I love a good idea. I love what inspires me to make something new. And that’s what I really take out of all this is that I wake up every morning, and I want to make something brand new that I didn't make the day before. We take so much. There’s so much content out there that we consume. It's really important that we put things back in. When we're gone, do we have anything left in this planet that we can look back and say, ‘Hey, this person right here made that?’ The best thing is when someone comes up to me and says that something that I created inspired them.” Inspired Employees Make InspiringApps Inspiration is what we do—after all, “Inspiring” is in our name—and our team is our not-so-secret source of inspiration that we draw from to inform our work in building beautiful apps for our clients. But inspiration is a much bigger concept. It’s what we draw from the world around us and give back as well. And because we create inspiration for others, our creativity is sustainable.

Our five core values shape who we are in and out of our office. Join us for a deep dive into our core values—how we demonstrate them, what they mean to us, and how they help us create beautiful and engaging digital products for others.  Empathy Understanding and perspective that shapes the process and the product Empathy comes naturally to our team members, and it’s easy for us to find the right questions that get to the heart of our client’s intent. We have a deep capacity for understanding a problem from a business, development, and user perspective, which holistically frames our entire software development process in the key areas that make a product successful. Respect Consideration and appreciation for client, team, and individual Diverse backgrounds, skills, hobbies, and perspectives make us a stronger team. We appreciate and embrace each other’s differences. We respect our clients and their ideas, and we work hard to approach problem solving from a positive perspective as equal partners. Inclusivity A mandate kept top of mind for the InspiringApps team We seek equality for both our team and our products. Inclusivity best practices are made throughout our software development process, and inclusive recruiting initiatives remain top of mind for our team. Commitment Approaching tasks and team with passion and intention Easy to use is often hard to design, so we sweat the details, treating your app development project like our own. Clients repeatedly convey they love working with us, because we passionately dig into projects alongside them. Our team is committed to the work and to each other. Small but mighty, the culture has a cohesive atmosphere that never skips a beat. Integrity Approaching all with heart and authenticity Integrity is at the core of all we do at InspiringApps and is exhibited throughout our hiring, training, and development practices. Honesty, excellence, and authenticity are as important to us as they are to our clients. Do our values align? We’re passionate. Determined. Crazy talented, yet humble. The mix of people that make up the InspiringApps team truly represents the values that influence our work most—empathy, respect, inclusivity, commitment, and integrity. These foundational commonalities contribute to both our great company culture and the beautiful and engaging apps we create. We thrive on creating strong partnerships with innovative clients who want to make a difference. Let’s get started.